The immensity of the universe (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Wednesday, January 20, 2016, 13:45 (3009 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Without the supernovas there would be no life at all. It takes lots of explosions to spread the necessary elements around to the rocky planets that can support life. And the final evidence is here. We are debating each other. It worked at least once. (dhw's bold)
dhw: A good argument for atheistic chance. Given a potentially infinite number of exploding supernovas, eventually it will work “at least once”. But if you insist on your all-planning God being within and without everything, you are left with not only billions of failed experiments, but also the fact that he is still busy exploding his supernovas and his solar systems, even though according to you he has achieved his purpose. -DAVID: No loss of a species is a failed event. It is evolution in process. -You are quite right that it is evolution in process, and always has been (though each loss is literally a failed event, since the species has failed to survive; it's just that some humans - and maybe God - don't care). As conditions change, organisms come and go in the great higgledy-piggledy. However, I was actually talking here about supernovas: the billions that must have come and gone throughout eternity, apparently as part of God's plan to produce humans. You wrote: “It worked at least once.” That means it didn't work billions of times.
 
DAVID: As for supernovas, they are built into the cosmic system and maybe God has plans for more sentient species in this vast universe that will eventually communicate with us. -Or maybe all these supernovas and solar systems are just appearing and disappearing with nothing controlling them and with no purpose. -DAVID: It still gets back to why is there anything?
dhw: Yes indeed. Not just why are there intelligent humans, but why is there anything at all?
DAVID: There could just as well be nothing. Smells of purpose, since amazing humans have arrived and chance events seem not to be the approach.-All life is amazing. We agree that its complexities are such that chance seems unlikely. On the other hand, it seems unlikely to me that the comings and goings of billions of solar systems are purposeful or under the control of a single mind. BBella thinks our complexities were designed by other complex beings, but then you and I ask how they came to exist. And Dawkins rightly asks how your God came to exist. Back to first cause: energy and matter, with consciousness always present (unlikely-seeming God) or evolving through a lucky combination of energy and matter (unlikely-seeming chance). Two unlikely-seeming hypotheses. Good reason to keep an open mind.